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July 31, 2006

In Vino Veritas

Buried in James Lileks' review of the latest animated flick about bugs that have something to teach us about kindness (ACK!), is this nugget.

On the other hand, “Happy Feet” is directed by George Miller, who also did “Mad Max.” So there’s that. There’s also the possibility that the penguin with the big long black scary beard will get hepped up on fermented herring blood and start ranting about the Jews.

I don't care who you are or where you're from, that's funny.

Except if you're Mel. Then it's just those "F#$&^%#$ Jews" piling on.

Patterico has a good analysis of the preferential treatment given by the L.A. Sheriffs to the moviestar, with links to the unredacted police reports.

UPDATE!

I meant to include this quote from David Frum, which is even better than Lileks' line.

If a drunken Mel Gibson did indeed call out, "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," then there can be only one possible place for a man who believes such things: as the next Secretary General of the United Nations.

Man, that's cold!

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Seattle terrorist attack

With the authorities blathering on about the "disturbed" lone gunman and their doubts that his attack on a bunch of Jewish women constitutes terrorism, Kim Du Toit notes that normal Americans have begun to realize that -- notwithstanding September 11th -- terrorists may indeed be trying to kill us. And that there's something we can do -- and he can help.

Looks like a few hitherto-unarmed people are thinking about buying a gun, in the wake of this little escapade:

The man suspected in a fatal shooting rampage hid behind a potted plant in a Jewish charity’s foyer and forced his way through a security door by holding a gun to a 13-year-old girl’s head, the police chief said Saturday.

Once inside, police say, Naveed Afzal Haq opened fire with two semiautomatic pistols. One woman, Pam Waechter, 58, of Seattle was killed at the scene. Five more women were wounded.

Haq, 30, was ordered held on $50 million bail Saturday pending formal charges of murder and attempted murder.

Haq, a Muslim, told authorities he was angered by the war in Iraq and U.S. military cooperation with Israel.

“He pointedly blamed the Jewish people for all of these problems,” Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said at a news conference Saturday.

So, just out of curiosity, let’s just imagine that two of the eighteen people inside the Center were Tech Support with her High Power, and Makarov Mami. Anyone think that the outcome would have been about the same?

Nope? Me neither.

As for the people who are still “thinking” about buying themselves gun, I have only one more question to ask: How many more random massacres like this will it take to get you to buy a gun? Do you think this kind of incident is just going to magically disappear in the future?

If you’re looking for some personal advice, my email addy is kim - at - kimdutoit dot com. Or, for even better (albeit more public) advice, go to the Forum to ask your question. Or for any anonymous questions, you can go to Anonymous Q. Generic advice can be found at First-Time Shooters and at General Gun Advice.

And, of course, to look for some ideas, you could look at the beautiful guns in the Gratuitous Gun Pics.

To recap:

1. Private and confidential: email
2. Public, getting lots of feedback: Forum
3. Anonymous, with quite a lot of feedback: Anonymous Qs
4. Generic advice: First-Time Shooters and General Gun Advice
5. Make your own choice: GGPs.

And if you live in the DFW area, I’ll even go to the gun store with you.

How's that for lending a helping hand?

More than anything else, terrorism highlights the effectiveness of an armed populace. When I was in Israel in the 1970s, it was jarring at first to see Uzis and M-16s everywhere, hanging from the shoulders of commuters on the bus, or on a father's shoulder while on a picnic with his family.

But soon enough, it just became part of the background. The upside was no street crime, and an instantaneous response time to terrorists.

Pamela Waechter

It's hard to imagine the Seattle shooter would have shot as many of his victims if he'd faced a couple of women with guns. And maybe Pamela Waechter would be alive and the gunman, whose name shall be erased from the memories of the living, would be in the morgue instead.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 28, 2006

The appeal of Islam to the self-loathing West

I had a discussion yesterday with a colleague about the novel Prayers for the Assassin, that posits a future where mass conversions to Islam occur in the aftermath of nuclear attacks on American cities -- while the Bible Belt remains reliably Christian.

My colleague expressed skepticism with the central conceit, that Americans would find the strict, text-based tenets of Islam appealing, especially given the seemingly growing hostility toward religion in general amongst much of the liberal public.

I responded that it seems to be liberals, or as I prefer to think of them, Moonbats, who seek spiritual fulfillment, responding to a feeling of loss, of an emptiness at their spiritual core, that sends them babbling into the arms of the Scientologists, the Moonies, the New-Age Crystal Clubs and Transcendental Navel Gazing societies, while recoiling from the strictures of traditional Judeo-Christian religions.

Of course, Mark Steyn comes along to point out that converts to Islam are enthusiastic jihadis, and the appeal to non-Muslims seems to be growing despite -- or because of? -- the war against the West.

In 2002, I asked a Muslim in Paris why Islam was the fastest-growing religion in the West and he said four out of five converts in Europe were women, positing therefrom that, aside from spousal conversions, significant numbers of western females found the feminist notion of womanhood degrading and unworthy. But, whether or not that's true, it doesn't seem to be the whole story.

In Britain, there are high-profile celebrity conversions--star footballers, Asquith's great-granddaughter, the son of the BBC director-general, and the Earl of Yarborough, who now goes by the name Abdul Mateen, though whether Burke's Peerage will list him as such remains to be seen.

This makes Islam sound like the Brit equivalent of Richard Gere Buddhism. It's not. It's bigger.

Over on the other side of the world, about 200,000 Filipinos in the Manila area are estimated to have converted to Islam. This is in addition to the four million Filipino Muslims in the south of the country. The raw math is quite impressive: aside from its surging birthrate, Islam has managed to increase its population by five per cent just through conversion.

I wonder what the equivalent numbers would look like for Norway or Belgium--or Ontario.

Taking the prize for chutzpah (if they'll forgive the expression), the Canadian Islamic Congress has conceded some young Muslim men may have assimilation issues but feels the best solution is if the government hands over a big pile of cash so it can run some research on "integration." I think that money could be better spent identifying the types of imams these young chaps are attracted to.

But the problem goes beyond the Muslim community and cuts to the heart of what Canada is, or believes itself to be: "Radical Islamism," wrote Fouad Ajami recently, "has come to mock the very principle of nationality and citizenship." But is that really so hard to do? Contemporary Canadian, British, Dutch and Swedish nationality is to a large extent self-mocking.

[...]

The jihad is everything the multiculti left's flopped at. The left talked up sappy Benetton-ad one-worldism, while the pan-Islamists got on with their own particular strain of one-worldism, fierce, implacable and slipping across borders with ease.

Meanwhile, the UCC and other post-Christian churches long ago decided the Gospel was a bore and if they could no longer convert the unbelieving to Christ, they could at least convert them to the boggiest of soft-left political clichés. Yet if the purpose of the modern church is to be a cutting-edge political pacesetter, it's Islam that's doing the better job.

The contemporary mosque or madrasah is not the place to go for spiritual contemplation so much as political motivation. The Muslim identity of those gold-toothed Punjabi yobs in northern England or Berber pseudo-rappers in French suburbs may seem spiritually vestigial but it's politically potent.

Pre-modern Islam beats postmodern Christianity--and, for young men in search of an identity, transnational jihad beats multicultural nullity. There's no amount of taxpayer money you could throw at the Canadian Islamic Congress that would satisfactorily explain just what it is in contemporary Canada Steven Chand is supposed to identify with.

It's interesting to note that the meme of "education and the eradication of poverty will end the appeal of jihad," something I hear from the Left as a solution to the "Why do they hate us?" problem, always seems to miss the fact that the 9-11 hijackers were from wealthy families, were well educated, and had been exposed to all that the West had to offer.

Unfortunately, all that money, education and international travel may have served to increase the perceived injustice of a dissolute West, filled with sinful and disrespectful unbelievers who mock the Koran and its tenets, infidels who prosper and succeed while the Muslim world remains mired in repression and war.

And yet . . . .

The only hopeful note in this mournful symphony, this funereal dirge for the West, is the growing numbers in the evangelical churches, and the Catholic Church, in the Third World. While the if-it-feels-good-do-it liberal churches see their membership decline, and the anything-goes Church of England moves closer to shuttering its vacant, unused sanctuaries, the faiths that demand more of their followers seem to be gaining converts, too, and not just the imams, but priests and pastors, too.

Say what you will, but I'm not hearing about Evangelical Christians and their fundamentalist brethren blowing themselves up in pizza parlors.

But I'm afraid that in the race to win new converts, the nihilistic mullahs are winning, and that scares the hell out of me.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 27, 2006

The story behind the attack on UNIFIL outposts

The Belmont Club has dissected the statements from the U.N. regarding Israeli attacks on or near UNIFIL positions, and finds that the Israelis have been simply shooting at the source of hostile fire; the terrorists often set up camp hard-by the UNIFIL troops -- or civilians -- to put the IDF in the unenviable position of having to risk killing civilians to get the bad guys.

All the incidents of IDF fire reported in the press releases are clearly related to some kind of nearby combat with the Hezbollah. In one case the IDF fired on a village into which the UNIFIL had gone, but rockets had originated from the vicinity of the village prior.

In another case, an Israeli aerial bombardment detonated mines all around a UNIFIL position. Those mines were presumably not planted by UNIFIL, but they were so close to it that the UN position caught fire.

The UN observation post in Maroun al-Ras was hit by artillery, but we know from press reports that Maroun al-Ras was the epicenter of heavy fighting and the location of a Hezbollah bunker complex. The UN even ran a convoy from the Hezbollah "capital" of Bint Jubayl to another area.

Bint Jubayl is well known to be the target of an IDF attack. Yet the UN felt that it was possible to move convoys through such areas, albeit at considerable danger.

The post includes images from Google Earth that illustrate the lay of the land, and why the terrorists are choosing to share the high ground with the UN troops.

A well written piece, with a raging debate in the comments section, too.

Check it out.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Where are the Truman Democrats?

At the tail-end of a post about the funky Silver Lake neighborhood in Los Angeles, Cathy Seipp notes an article -- unfortunately hidden behind a subscription firewall -- that she deems top notch.

Speaking of the war, one of the best things I've read anywhere recently is Noemie Emery's cover story in the Weekly Standard a couple of weeks ago: "The Inconvenient Truth About Truman." You can't read the Weekly Standard's paper magazine online unless you're a subscriber, but here's the most important part of Emery's article, about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings:

What Truman showed here is the relentlessness he shared with Lincoln and Roosevelt; the will to do what one must to save one's people, in the knowledge that sometimes men who do not like to kill are forced and obliged to kill in great numbers, to make sure that cruel and evil regimes do not flourish and that those who like killing do not rule the earth. It is the Democrats' problem -- and therefore the country's -- that their last president to understand this on a visceral level left the White House in 1963 in a coffin.

I am not a true believer Republican and would be quite happy to see the Democrats nominate someone I could vote for in 2008, which means someone more like the actual Harry Truman than the fantasy one. But the their track record lately hasn't been good.

Harry Truman -- Give 'em hell, Harry! -- would be tossed out of today's Democratic Party. He was the kind of muscular foreign-policy Donk that earned the life-long loyalty of my grandparents' generation, a loyalty that was transmitted to my Dad, also a life-long Dem -- until the disasterous presidency of Jimmah Carter, when my father crossed the line to the GOP.

It's telling that there are no Trumans to be found in the ranks of today's Dhimmi-cratic Party.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:56 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

I'd have used a gun

Kim Du Toit provides info about a man who, well, to paraphrase Sean Connery from the Untouchables, brought a knife to a bear fight.

A man stabbed a black bear to death with a 15-cm hunting knife, saying he knew he would otherwise become “lunch” after it attacked him and his dog on a canoeing portage in northern Ontario.

An avid outdoorsman, Tilley was four days into a 12-day canoe trip. He said he heard Sam growl and noticed the bear closing in on him. He waved his arms and slowly backed away. But the bear came closer, cutting off his escape route.

“That’s when I knew I had a serious problem.… I was lunch,” he said. “The bear took a few steps down the trail and clamped its mouth on the back of my dog. It gave me the quick opportunity I needed to run around to the back of the bear, get on its back and with my knife start stabbing it.”

Holy moly! He must be one of those guys who actually repels a shark attack by punching the toothy tuna in the schnozz.

But I'd still rather face a bear with a gun. A BIG gun. From across a meadow. Inside an armored personnel carrier.

Actually, I'd rather confront it from my couch, via the Discovery Channel (Hi-Def, of course!).

There's more details and a link to the complete story on Kim's page.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 26, 2006

Cox & Forkum

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I feel the need, the need for speed

There's a new reality series on A&E, Driving Force, that follows the trials and tribulations of thirteen-time drag-racing champion John Force, and his three attractive, drag-racing daughters, too.

The show is a pleasant surprise; Force seems like a real mensch, someone who remembers what it was like growing up poor in a trailer park, wanting his children to appreciate all that they have, and why it's important to want to succeed -- and win.

Something else that struck me was how often he tells his kids, his older brother, and his wife, "I love you."

I grew up in a Jewish family of first- and second-generation Americans, all descended from Eastern-European immigrants. My Russian ancestors were big huggers and kissers, and my father and grandfather were typical, always hugging and kissing and telling us that they loved us.

My impression of mainstream, Christian, blue-collar Americans is that of men who love their families, but hew to a more "manly" and reticent way of showing that affection. Before you accuse me of lawyerly blathering on about that of which I know nothing, I have to remind you that my life took a decidedly blue-collar turn when I dropped out of high school at 17 and joined the military, whereupon I lived in close quarters with shipmates who were mostly working-class guys from the South and Mid-West.

I was shocked when their parents would come visit, and they'd greet their dads' with a handshake. It's not a class thing either; when I was in college at a small liberal-arts university near Manhattan, I saw wealthy parents delivering their kids from toney sections of Connecticut and Long Island, leaving the freshman for their first semester away from home with an offhand, "Take care, son," followed by a handshake and a nod.

Yikes.

Anyhow, John Force is more like my dad than I'd expected, and if you'd told me that my father had anything in common with a professional racer, I'd have called you whack-a-doodle crazy.

Now, the other thing about the show that caught my interest was the unbelievably fast cars.

Thanks to The Braden files, I found this info, detailing just how powerful they really are.

One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.

Under full throttle, a Top Fuel dragster engine consumes 11.2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

A stock Dodge 426 Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster's supercharger.

With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F ( 3900 degrees C ).

Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapour by the searing exhaust gases.

Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.

Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed reading this sentence.

Top Fuel Engines turn approximately 540 RPM's from light to light! but stop & ponder the fact that the engine is only used for apx 4 to 5 seconds.

Including the burnout the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

The red-line is actually quite high at 9500 rpm.

The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000.00 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile 10/05/03, (Tony Shumacher). The top speed record is 333.00 mph (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the run (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta).

Putting all of this into perspective: You are riding the average $25,000 Honda MotoGP bike. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start.

You run the RC211V hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph (293 ft/sec). The tree' goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you.

You keep your wrist cranked hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him.

Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race course.

That, folks, is acceleration.

Via Donald Sensing.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A message from the future

Novelist Dan Simmons posts a creepy encounter with a time-travelling visitor on his blog, and the news isn't good.

I tried to relax. “What do you want to talk about?” I said.

“The Century War,” said the Time Traveler.

I blinked and tried to remember some history. “You mean the Hundred Year War? Fifteenth Century? Fourteenth? Sometime around there. Between . . . France and England? Henry V? Kenneth Branagh? Or was it . . .”

“I mean the Century War with Islam,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “Your future. Everyone’s.” He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he stood, refilled his Scotch glass, and sat again. He said, “It was important to me to come back to this time early on in the struggle. Even if only to remind myself of how unspeakably blind you all were.”

“You mean the War on Terrorism,” I said.

“I mean the Long War with Islam,” he said. “The Century War. And it’s not over yet where I come from. Not close to being over.”

“You can’t have a war with Islam,” I said. “You can’t go to war against a religion. Radical Islam, maybe. Jihadism. Some extremists. But not a . . . the . . . religion itself. The vast majority of Muslims in the world are peaceloving people who wish us no harm. I mean . . . I mean . . . the very word ‘Islam’ means ‘Peace.’”

“So you kept telling yourselves,” said the Time Traveler. His voice was very low but there was a strange and almost frightening edge to it. “But the ‘peace’ in ‘Islam’ means ‘Submission.’ You’ll find that out soon enough”

Great, I was thinking. Of all the time travelers in all the gin joints in all the world, I get this racist, xenophobic, right-wing asshole.

“After Nine-eleven, we’re fighting terrorism,” I began, “not . . .”

He waved me into silence.

“You were a philosophy major or minor at that podunk little college you went to long ago,” said the Time Traveler. “Do you remember what Category Error is?”

It rang a bell. But I was too irritated at hearing my alma mater being called a “podunk little college” to be able to concentrate fully.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the Time Traveler. “In philosophy and formal logic, and it has its equivalents in science and business management, Category Error is the term for having stated or defined a problem so poorly that it becomes impossible to solve that problem, through dialectic or any other means.”

I waited. Finally I said firmly, “You can’t go to war with a religion. Or, I mean . . . sure, you could . . . the Crusades and all that . . . but it would be wrong.”

The Time Traveler sipped his Scotch and looked at me. He said, “Let me give you an analogy . . .”

God, I hated and distrusted analogies. I said nothing.

“Let’s imagine,” said the Time Traveler, “that on December eighth, Nineteen forty-one, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress and asked them to declare war on aviation.”

“That’s absurd,” I said.

“Is it?” asked the Time Traveler. “The American battleships, cruisers, harbor installations, Army barracks, and airfields at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii were all struck by Japanese aircraft. Imagine if the next day Roosevelt had declared war on aviation . . . threatening to wipe it out wherever we found it. Committing all the resources of the United States of America to defeating aviation, so help us God.”

“That’s just stupid,” I said. If I’d ever been afraid of this Time Traveler, I wasn’t now. He was obviously a mental defective.“The planes, the Japanese planes,” I said, “were just a method of attack . . . a means . . . it wasn’t aviation that attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but the Empire of Japan. We declared war on Japan and a few days later its ally, Germany, lived up to its treaty with the Japanese and declared war on us. If we’d declared war on aviation, on goddamned airplanes rather than the empire and ideology that launched them, we’d never have . . .”

I stopped. What had he called it? Category Error. Making the problem unsolvable through your inability – or fear – of defining it correctly.

The Time Traveler was smiling at me from the shadows. It was a small, thin, cold smile – holding no humor in it, I was sure -- but still a smile of sorts. It seemed more sad than gloating as my sudden silence stretched on.

Read the whole thing. It's a compelling, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-standing-up tale, one that seems all too plausible.

I read it yesterday, and I've been thinking about passages from it ever since, points Simmons makes that leave me angered and depressed. And frightened, too.

And to beat it all, it's entertaining and well written, as one might expect from the imagination and pen of an award-winning author.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:38 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 24, 2006

Irony alert!

Nobel Peace Prize winner announces she'd like to kill Pres. Bush.

NOBEL peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren.

Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum, being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and lambasted Mr Bush.

"I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence', because I don't believe that I am non-violent," said Ms Williams, 64.

"Right now, I would love to kill George Bush." Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

"I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It's our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life."

[...]

[T]he former office receptionist heads the World Centres of Compassion for Children International, a non-profit group working to create a political voice for children.

[...]

Wrapping up the three-day forum yesterday, delegates agreed to a 26-point action plan.

"There can be no sustainable peace while the majority of the world's population lives in poverty," they said.

"There can be no sustainable peace if we fail to rise to the global challenge presented by climate change.

"There can be no sustainable peace while military spending takes precedence over human development."

Perfect. A pacifist who advocates murdering those with whom she disagrees.

The mind reels.

Via Little Green Footballs

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Beating the Man

The folks behind traffic-cams are just going to hate this.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Learning from the Cubans

As war in the Middle East helps drive petroleum prices to record highs, it's good to remember that those politicians who pay lip service to the U.S. achieving "energy independence" are resisting efforts to wean us off the foreign-oil teat.

France relies on nuclear power to generate the vast majority of its power; we haven't broken ground on a reactor for decades. What about the "cleaner" technologies? You mean like wind-generated power? Well, there was a proposal to build a wind farm off the New England Coast, but the founding member of the Chappaquiddick Swim Club joined forces with Walter Mitty Flipper John Kerry to kill the unsightly energy alternative.

And let's not forget that, although the U.S. is sitting on oil reserves big enough to completely replace our foreign oil-producing kleptocrats, mullahs and strongmen, Congress won't allow us to tap it.

ANWR, the strip of Alaska that, well, that Alaskans want to open to exploration remains off limits, thanks to the feckless nincompoops in the Senate. The House has voted several times to allow drilling, but their counterparts in the "World's Greatest Debating Society" (Ack!) can't bear the thought of actually doing something that will help Americans -- at least, not when the hated GOP and Chimpy McBushitler Halliburton could take credit for it.

There are also huge energy reserves off our coasts, but again they remain verboten to us, because oil platforms offend our aesthetic sensibilities.

But others aren't so sensitive.

That bastion of free education, universal health care, and economic justice, i.e., Cuba, isn't sitting back on its well-worn heels; they're doing what we ought to do, if we had cojones: drilling for oil off their coast -- and ours.

While American politicians try to extend the ban on drilling to more than 200 miles from the Florida coastline, Supreme Maximum Socialist Commandante Castro has been pumping sweet crude and natural gas from a mere 60 miles from the shores of the Spring-Break mecca.

According to the Washington Times:

Republicans in Congress have tried repeatedly in the past decade to open up the outer continental shelf to exploration, and Florida's waters hold some of the most promising prospects for major energy finds. Their efforts have been frustrated by opposition from Florida, California and environmental-minded legislators from both parties.

Florida's powerful tourism and booming real estate industries fear that oil spills could cost them business. Lawmakers from the state are so adamantly opposed to drilling that they have bid to extend the national ban on drilling activity from 100 miles to as far as 250 miles offshore, encompassing the island of Cuba.

Cuba is exploring in its half of the 90-mile-wide Straits of Florida within the internationally recognized boundary as well as in deep-water areas of the Gulf of Mexico. The impoverished communist nation is eager to receive any economic boost that would come from a major oil find.

"They think there's a lot of oil out there. We'll see," said Fadi Kabboul, a Venezuelan energy minister. He noted that the oil fields Cuba is plumbing do not respect national borders. Any oil Cuba finds and extracts could siphon off fuel that otherwise would be available to drillers off the Florida coast and oil-thirsty Americans.

Canadian companies Sherritt International Co. and Pebercan Inc. already are pumping more than 19,000 barrels of crude each day from the Santa Cruz, Puerto Escondido, Canasi and other offshore fields in the straits about 90 miles from Key West, and Spain's Repsol oil company has announced the discovery of "quality oil" in deep-water areas of the same region, the National Ocean Industries Association said.

Cuba's state oil company, Cubapetroleo, also has inked a deal with China's Sinopec to explore for oil, and it is using Chinese-made drilling equipment to conduct the exploration.

That compounds the frustration for U.S. oil companies and other businesses that have lobbied to open up the estimated 45 billion barrels in oil reserves and 232 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in banned drilling areas of the Gulf -- enough to fuel millions of cars and heat millions of homes for decades.

U.S. companies, which have the best deep-water equipment, cannot participate in the Cuban drilling because of the 45-year economic embargo against Fidel Castro's communist regime.

If oil is found in commercially viable quantities, Cuba could be transformed from an oil importer into an exporter, ending chronic energy shortages on the island and generating government revenue.

That prospect and the involvement of China and Venezuela in exploration activities have attracted the attention of the CIA and other national security agencies, even if congressional opposition to offshore drilling has not budged.

Sterling Burnett, a fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank, said Cuba's activities show that the quarter-century ban on offshore drilling is putting the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage at a time of increasingly scarce energy resources and record high oil and gas prices that are hampering economic growth and stoking inflation.

"Canada and even economically backward Cuba are moving forward with plans to drill in offshore areas that abut U.S. coastal waters," he said. "Since pools of oil do not respect international boundaries, it is almost certainly true that Canada and Cuba will be accessing oil that could otherwise be developed by and for the benefit of Americans."

More than half of the nation's untapped offshore oil and gas reserves lie within the Gulf, much of it within Florida's protected waters. In the latest attempt to exploit the reserves, the House last month passed a bill that would allow coastal states to decide whether to open the first 100 miles of their waters for exploration.

The bill allows states such as Florida and California to vote for a permanent moratorium on drilling but also includes a powerful enticement to allow exploration: half of the hundreds of billions of dollars in royalties and fees from drilling that otherwise would go to the federal government.

Until Congress actually votes to build nuclear power plants, ignore the bleating of namby-pamby NIMBYs, put windmills off Hyannisport, and drill for the energy reserves that we already own, the pissing and moaning about the high cost of gas is nothing more than craven political posturing -- and deserving of nothing more than a shrug and a sigh as we pay for the next tank of gas.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:07 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 21, 2006

United Nations -- United in graft and murder

Before you buy off on the idea that the U.N. is part of the solution, read how it is part of the problem.

The United Nations Intermn Force in Lebanon's (UNIFIL) most notorious collaboration with terrorists involved the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli soldiers, and the subsequent cover-up.

On October 7, 2000, Hezbollah terrorists entered Israel, attacked three Israeli soldiers on Mount Dov, and abducted them Lebanon. The kidnapping was witnessed by several dozen UNIFIL soldiers who stood idle. One of the soldier witnesses described the kidnapping: the terrorists set of an explosive which stunned the Israeli soldiers. Clad in UN uniforms, the terrorists called out, "Come, come, we’ll help you."

The Israeli soldiers approached the men in UN uniforms. Then, a Hezbollah bomb detonated—-apparently prematurely. It wounded the disguised Hezbollah commander, and three Israeli soldiers.

Two other terrorists in U.N. uniforms dragged their Hezbollah commander and the three wounded soldiers into a getaway car.

According an Indian solider in UNIFIL who witnessed the kidnapping, "By this stage, there was a big commotion and dozens of UN soldiers from the Indian brigade came around." The witness stated that the brigade knew that the kidnappers in UN uniform were Hezbollah. One soldiers said that the brigade should arrest the Hezbollah, but the brigade did nothing.

According to the Indian soldier, the UNFIL brigade in the area "could have prevented the kidnapping."

"I’m very sorry about what happened, because we saw what happened," he said. Hezbollah "were wearing our uniforms and it was too bad we didn’t stop them."

It appears that at least four of the UNIFIL "peacekeepers," all from India, has received bribes from Hezbollah in order to assist the kidnapping by helping them get to the kidnapping spot and find the Israeli soldiers. Some of the bribery involved alcohol and Lebanese women.

[...]

The UN cover-up began almost immediately.

Lebanon's The Daily Star reported the story told by a former officer of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), which is part of the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). ("UN 'destroyed' evidence after abduction of 3 Israeli troops," The Daily Star, July 20, 2001.)

[...]

Rather than using the very-recently-abandoned vehicles as clues to rescue the kidnap victims, the UN initiated a cover-up. The next morning, eighteen hours after the kidnapping, a team of OGL and the Indian UNIFIL began removing the contents of the cars.

The Range Rover was soaked with blood. Among the contents of the vehicles may have been a cell phone belonging to the terrorists. The UNTSO officer confirmed that the cars contained "extremely sensitive" items which included "current and relevant information that could have been easily linked to the incident."

A UNIFIL peacekeeper videotaped the removal of the contents, and attempted to tow one of the cars. According to a much-later U.N. report, there were fifty items taken from the car, seven of them blood-stained. (Report of the fact-finding investigation relating to the abduction of three Israeli soldiers on 7 October 2000 and subsequent relevant events, Aug. 2, 2001.)

The end of the UNIFIL videotape featured armed Lebanese men confronting the UN forces, and taking the cars away from the UN. The UN personnel did not resist, because, they later claimed, the cars did not belong to the UN anyway.

The UNTSO officer told The Daily Star that the UN ordered its personnel to destroy all photographs and written reports about the incident.

The U.N. did not provide the Israelis with the automobile contents, or the videotape, both of which might have helped the Israelis rescue the kidnap victims. Instead, the seized contents of the cars were taken to a town in Lebanon, stored in a safe, and some were eventually returned to Hezbollah.

Israel found out about the videotape, and demanded that the UN let Israeli investigators see it. Kofi Annan and his Special Envoy denied that any videotape existed. It is not clear whether Annan was lying, or whether he was misled.

Nine months after the kidnapping, July 6, 2001, the UN admitted that is had the videotape. Annan ordered an internal UN Report, which was led by UN undersecretary-General Joseph Connor. (Connor was later implicated in the Oil-for-Food scam.) The report revealed that the UN had two additional videotapes—one of which contained still photographs from the kidnapping itself. The UN investigation declared that there was no evidence that the UNIFIL forces had been bribed, or that the UN had deliberately misled anyone.

Even after admitting the existence of the first videotape, Annan refused to allow Israel to view it. He claimed that letting Israel see evidence about the kidnapping would undermine the UN’s neutrality. Thus, Annan insisted on neutrality between innocent victims and terrorists who had used fake UN insignia and who had taken vehicles from UN staff a gunpoint.

The United States House of Representatives, on July 30, 2001, passed by a vote of 411-4 a resolution urging the UN to allow Israel to see the videotape. Annan relented, but only under the condition that the tape be edited so as to hide the faces of the Hezbollah perpetrators. He also agreed to give the Israelis some, but not all, of the items which the UN had seized from the getaway cars.

On January 29, 2004, the bodies of the murdered Israelis were returned to Israel by Hezbollah, as part of a prisoner exchange.

The United Nations exists to provide a forum for tyrants and terrorists to berate Western democracies, and to pass resolutions condemning the world's only Jewish state, while ignoring the depradations and depravities of its thugocratic Third-World members.

U.N. "Peacekeepers" rape and murder the very people they are supposed to protect, or stand idly by while others do the same. Will someone please tell me why the United States continues to provide the lion's share of the budget to this bunch of crooks?

Infuriating.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Plain talk at the U.N.

Remember how Amb. John Bolton was kicked around by the U.S. Senate, vilified in the press as a wild-eyed madman who'd wreak havoc at the U.N.?

Well, check out this clear-eyed response to an idiotic question from a journalist.

Reporter: The news for the last 48 hours from the Middle East, it is more and more apparent now that many in the Middle East, Lebanese and others, are accusing the U.S. and the Security Council of being the obstacle to a real ceasefire immediately because that’s what they need. Could you explain in a couple words what is really your position about this?

Ambassador Bolton: Well look, I think we could have a cessation of hostilities immediately if Hezbollah would stop terrorizing innocent civilians and give up the kidnapped Israeli soldiers. So that to the extent this crisis continues, the cause is Hezbollah.

How you get a ceasefire between one entity, which is a government of a democratically elected state on the one hand, and another entity on the other which is a terrorist gang, no one has yet explained.

The government of Israel, everybody says, has the right to exercise the right of self-defense, which even if there are criticisms of Israeli actions by some, they recognize the fundamental right to self-defense. That’s a legitimate right.

Are there any activities that Hezbollah engages in, militarily that are legitimate? I don’t think so. All of it’s activities are terrorist and all of them are illegitimate, so I don’t see the balance or the parallelism between the two sides and therefore I think it’s a very fundamental question: how a terrorist group agrees to a ceasefire.

You know in a democratically elected government, the theory is that the people ultimately can hold the government accountable when it does something and doesn’t live up to it. How do you hold a terrorist group accountable? Who runs the terrorist group? Who makes the commitment that a terrorist group will abide by a ceasefire? What does a terrorist group think a ceasefire is?

These are - you can use the words “cessation of hostilities” or “truce” or ‘ceasefire”. Nobody has yet explained how a terrorist group and a democratic state come to a mutual ceasefire.

I believe this is the perfect response to demands for a cease-fire, one that should be repeated, verbatim, whenever the press begins demanding that we insist on the Israelis standing down.

And can we finally make Amb. Bolton the permanent U.S. representative to Turtle Bay?

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Thinking of seeing a movie?

If you were thinking about seeing the new flick from M. Night Shyamalan, Lady In The Water, check out this review from Moriarity, who has enjoyed the director's previous flicks.

Key 'graphs:

... [I]it’s all so nonsensical, so completely without even the bare minimum of logic that a great fairy tale should possess, that none of it matters. By halfway in, the worst feeling had taken hold of me, and no matter how much effort I was seeing expended onscreen, the same thought just kept playing over and over for me, louder and louder as the film progressed.

I. Don’t. Care.

Everything seemed overconsidered. Everything felt phony.

And then the review starts getting harsh.

At the Arclight on Monday night, there was a press screening for LADY IN THE WATER, and the mood at the start of the film seemed to be a pretty open-minded one. People applauded a few times as the film settled in and got going, and they laughed in all the right places, oohed and aahed a few times.

When the Scrunt appeared, people jumped and giggled afterwards. The film played... up to a point. And it’s hard to be exactly sure when it happened, but I’ll tell you when I noticed them turn. There’s a moment after Night’s character discovers what his destiny is, where he’s wrestling with the implications of it, and he’s talking about how he still can’t believe he’s the one. “Who am I to tell people these things?” he asks. “I’m no one special.”

And from the back of the theater, clear as a bell, someone grumbled, “Goddamn right about that.” And there was a ripple of laughter from some of the people around him. I didn’t think it was a particularly pithy comment, and I don't endorse ruining other people's experience with a film at all, but the reaction was telling. People laughed. And the more Night talked about how important his work is, the more people seemed to shut down and disconnect. The more other people felt like it was okay for them to talk.

By the time the credits roll (to a cover version of a Bob Dylan song, once again reinforcing how much he wants to be associated with the icons he believes himself the equal of), there was open hissing and booing. A fair amount of it. More than I’ve ever heard at any press screening anywhere. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like it.

This was the most openly hostile room I've been in for a film since the first test screening of NORTH, where Jerry Seinfeld loudly told Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Jason Alexander, "Nope, not even for you guys," before he walked out. People didn’t just leave the theater on Monday night; they stormed out. I normally don’t discuss the reactions of crowds when I write reviews. I think people frequently project onto the audience.

That’s not the case here, though. Those people turned on Night over the running time of that film, and that’s a genuine problem. All the spin in the world and all the talk about watching like a child and all the pre-release excuses aren’t going to help with the general audience. This film will bore and infuriate many viewers, and the marketing that’s selling this as a horror movie won’t help at all.

This is not a horror movie. It wants to be a family movie. It’s fairly chaste, and there’s nothing really objectionable in it as long as your kid isn’t a stickler for good structure or solid characterization.

I wish I could convey to you just how much this film depressed me. It made me so sad that it’s taken me two days to write about it. This is one of those films that will genuinely bother me when I hear someone try to defend it. I’m not going to try to explain to you why someone else does or doesn’t like something; that is presumptuous, and it always seems like you’re trying to tear someone else’s opinion down to build up your own. If you really love this film, then I guess it’s a good think Night made it. But I think this is a hard film to defend, and I think overall, this is a creative dead end for an artist who makes it hard to like him even when his work is at its best, much less when he’s churning out aggressively condescending material like this.

As always, rather than taking the word of just one guy, check out MetaCritic's take on the film.

Me? I'll take a pass.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:42 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 20, 2006

My God! It's full of stars!

Clayton Cramer on one reason why he moved to Idaho, in a post he aptly titled Dark Skies.

At the encouragement of my wife, I am resuming astrophotography ... I was outside last night doing star trails, where you aim the camera at the North Star, and set various exposure times: 5 minutes, 10, 20, and 40. As the stars rotate around the North Star, you get photographs like this.

My wife shared my amazement at how dark the sky was at our house. The Moon had not risen yet, and the Milky Way stretched across the entire sky, from north to south. Even the skyglow of Boise wasn't enough to drown it out. I couldn't find the constellation Hercules at first, because it was overwhelmed by all the other stars.

It's easy for city dwellers to forget how bright the night sky can be; nothing beats being in mid-ocean on a naval ship maintaining blackout conditions to provide a perfect view of the heavens. Some nights the twinkling stars above were matched by the phosphoresence of the plankton below, sparkling like green supernovas as the bow wave of our sub disturbed the tiny creatures into brief flashes of cold fire.

Cramer has more details on his astrophotography here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:27 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Honda goes back to the future for a way to cool its Ohio factory: Ice, ice, baby!

Cooling with ice used to be big business- chop it in the winter, store it under sawdust and use it for cooling and refrigeration all summer. Movie theatres used to run fans over ice to bring people in all summer, making summer the biggest movie season because it was the coolest place to go. Honda's new Ohio plant is cooled by ice- not cut out of the river but made by two big 450 ton chillers that work all night using cheap base-load power, which then chills the air all day as the ice melts. While the system cost more at the beginning, it should pay for itself in three years and last at least thirty.

"What's cool about it is that it's using ice as the coolant as opposed to any sort of Freon," said Elaine Barnes, executive director of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition, referring to the ozone-depleting gas often used in conventional air-conditioning systems. "It is a very clean and environmentally friendly source of air. It's a very efficient system."

Those Dead White Men must've known what they were doing, eh? Cutting ice and storing it for use in the Summer months has been used for hundreds of years, and it's interesting to see a willingness to rely on time-tested techniques in the hyper-modern era.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Good-bye to all that

Via Kesher Talk comes the question, "Could the Hamas/Hezbollah rocket attacks mean the end of a Palestinian state?"

One of the implications of the current fighting is that a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is no longer strategically viable for Israel. Missiles with a 40 kilometer (24 mile) range can strike most Israeli population centers from launching sites within the West Bank. Similar missiles fired from sites in the Gaza Strip could hit most of the remaining Israeli centers. Missiles with a 200 kilometer (120 mile) range can strike all of Israel from launching sites in the Palestinian West Bank.

The 40 kilometer missiles can be deployed and fired with no warning. The 200 kilometer missiles can be deployed and fired with only limited warning. The result is a viable Palestinian option to wage war on Israel via a missile siege that supplements the suicide bomber attacks. This also negates many of the security benefits Israel hoped to gain via withdrawal from Gaza and most of the West Bank and construction of barriers separating the two populations.

Hezbollah and evolving missile technology have just killed the two-state peace plan. There is now only room for one semi-strategically viable state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Indefensible borders provide a justification for an adjustment of same. We could see the Arabs having forced upon themselves the same fate inflicted upon the Sudeten Germans at the end of World War II, perhaps the most ironic of unintended consequences.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

They exist to destroy Israel

Israeli columnist Caroline Glick reports from Northern Israel on why it's come to this. Her conclusions are not encouraging to those persons inclined to believe that peaceful coesixtence is possible.

As Hizbullah attacked an IDF patrol on the Lebanese border Wednesday morning and so opened its newest round of war, I was standing at the fortress of Megiddo looking at the ruins of civilizations and their wars for this land stretching back 5,000 years. Thursday found me in Nahariya walking on a battlefield of the current war: the street where two hours earlier Monica Seidman was killed by a Katyusha while sitting on her balcony drinking her morning coffee.

After I left Nahariya with its residents huddled in bomb shelters and stairwells of apartment buildings, I headed west along the border highway to Kiryat Shemona. As I drove along the empty, beautiful, mountain road and gazed at the rocket smoke buffeting upwards from Mt. Meron, Safed, and Rosh Pinna below me, commentators on the radio kept asking, "Why is Hizbullah attacking Israel now?" Former generals spoke of the need for Israel to restore our deterrence against Hizbullah.

FOR SIX years, since Ehud Barak surrendered to the demands of the radical, EU-funded Israeli Left and withdrew IDF forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel stood by and did nothing as Hizbullah built up its massive arsenal of rockets and missiles. The IDF did nothing as Iran effectively set up shop along the border.

All day Thursday Lebanese radio stations played military marches. Announcers made repeated statements invoking Allah, Lebanon, mujahadin and jihad. Clearly, they were thrilled that the long anticipated war had begun.

For six years Israel was deterred by Hizbullah. The knowledge that the Iranian proxy has missiles capable of hitting Haifa and Hadera sufficed to convince three successive governments to ignore or appease repeated Hizbullah provocations while praying that Hizbullah would wait for the next government to start its war.

Now that Hizbullah has started the war, can it be deterred from continuing to attack Israel? What can Israel do now, as more than one million Israelis live in areas that have already come under attack?

[...]

Hizbullah is always ready to attack Israel. That is what it exists to do. As its leader Hassan Nasrallah makes clear every day, Hizbullah sees the destruction of Israel as a central battle in the global jihad. And jihad is all that matters to Hizbullah.

In this, Hizbullah is no different from Hamas. Hamas (and Fatah for that matter), defines itself by its goal of destroying Israel and conquering Jerusalem in the name of jihad. Both Hamas and Fatah have used all their resources to build up their political, social and military capabilities to fight Israel.

Because these groups exist only to destroy Israel and advance the cause of global jihad, they cannot be deterred. They have no interest other than war and there is nothing they are not willing to sacrifice in order to win. Since they cannot be deterred, the only thing that Israel can do is destroy their ability to fight by demolishing their military capabilities.

[...]

The Lebanese army cannot disarm Hizbullah. It can however be deterred from assisting Hizbullah. If Israel is able to credibly assert to the Lebanese that IDF forces will not end their operations in Lebanon until Hizbullah is completely destroyed as a fighting force, then it can persuade the Lebanese government to stay out of the conflict and deploy its military along the border with Israel after the fighting is ended.

[...]

By targeting Hamas in Syria, Israel would be making clear that national borders are not sacred for states that sponsor terrorism. If attacking Hamas in Damascus is not enough to make Assad recalibrate his national interests, then Israel should attack the headquarters of the regime's secret police as well as Syria's Scud missile bases and its chemical and biological weapons arsenals.

By destroying Hizbullah and peeling away its client states, Israel would be striking a serious blow at Iran which is directing all the violence in Lebanon and Gaza as well as in Judea and Samaria and Iraq. Iran has made destroying Israel a central plank on its agenda because by attacking the hated Jews, Iran is successfully raising its stature as the leader of the Muslim world. By leading the war against Israel, Iran has rendered itself immune to attacks from Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt that, while objecting to Iran's power grab, cannot condemn aggression against the same Israel they have indoctrinated their people to despise.

[...]

[T]he Olmert government's continued insistence on going forward with its plan to retreat from Judea and Samaria and partition Jerusalem indicates that the premier has not accepted the now obvious fact that Israeli withdrawals strengthen our enemies. Since the central policy of the government contradicts its stated objective of denying operating bases to terrorists, it is difficult to see how the government will muster the necessary enthusiasm to see its campaign in Lebanon to a successful conclusion.

FINALLY, THE fact that the government has limited the IDF campaign in Lebanon to aerial bombardment indicates that it is not willing to take the necessary actions to secure the country from Iranian-Hizbullah attacks. The IDF campaign recalls the NATO bombing campaign against Kosovo and Serbia in 1999. Yet the situation on the ground in Lebanon is more analogous to the situation in Afghanistan in 2001. It was possible to limit the campaign in Kosovo to aerial bombardment because the Serbian government was deterrable. Yet, like the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Hizbullah is not open to persuasion and so must be destroyed utterly. This can only be accomplished with ground forces.

As my interrupted vacation proved, by retreating from Lebanon and Gaza, Israel effectively surrendered the initiative for waging war to its enemies. Israelis no longer control when war comes to us. It is therefore imperative that the Olmert government understand that retreat is not an option. Otherwise, whether at work or at play, at home or on the town, we will all be sitting ducks.

All talk of cease-fires and peace talks is simply pie-in-the-sky jibber-jabber. Until both sides are interested in ending the war, there cannot be peace. And in Hamas and Hezbollah, we have terrorist groups that have explicitly stated that their very reason for being is the destruction of Israel.

Which also means that anyone demanding Israel halt its "disproportionate response" either is a willful accomplice to its would-be destruction, or simply an idiot who refuses to acknowledge the existential threat to the Jews, the Arab Fourth Reich trying to implement its Final Solution to the Jewish Problem: the existence of a Jewish nation.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 19, 2006

Wilson-Plame: There never was any "There" there

Lefty journalist Christopher Hitchens with the final word on the Joe Wilson-Valerie Plame kerfuffle.

Robert Novak's July 12 column and his appearance on Meet the Press ... have dissolved any remaining doubt about the mad theory that the Bush administration "outed" Ms. Valerie Plame as revenge for her husband's refusal to confirm the report by British intelligence that Iraqi officials had visited Niger in search of uranium.

[...]

When one thinks of the oceans of ink and acres of paper that have been wasted on this mother of all nonstories, one wants to weep for the journalistic profession as well as for the trees. Well before Novak felt able to go public, he had said that his original source was not "a partisan gunslinger," which by any reasonable definition means that he was consciously excluding the names of Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. And how likely was it anyway that either man, seeking to revenge himself on Joseph Wilson, would go to a columnist who is known to be one of Wilson's admirers (praise for him and his career was a central theme in the original 2003 article), is friendly with the CIA, and is furthermore known as a staunch and consistent foe of the administration's intervention in Iraq? The whole concept was nonsense on its face.

[...]

No reporter or lawyer concerned with the case believes that Novak's original source was any other than Richard Armitage. I have heard it lamely said that, if true, this would "undercut" the idea that Wilson and Plame were targets of an administration vendetta. No. it wouldn't "undercut" the idea. It would annihilate it. Mr. Armitage exceeds even his own former boss and current best friend Colin Powell in visceral hatred of the neoconservatives. In that sense, and in his collusion with Bob Woodward on the story of the origins of the war, he actually is a "partisan gunslinger"—but on the Wilson side of the argument. However, in the present instance, that would only lend credence to Novak's testimony that the "disclosure"—if it was a disclosure and not just a confirmation of something well-known—was inadvertent.

So, after almost three years and an exhaustive investigation by a fairly serious and renowned prosecutor involving the jailing of a distinguished reporter, it has been concluded that there was never any breach of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act to begin with. One official at the White House has allegedly been caught in a secondary or even tertiary conflict of evidence. And the hapless Wilsons have been obliged to file their own civil suit, as if the "discovery" it might afford will surpass what Fitzgerald, armed with a quiver of subpoenas and waivers, has been able to accomplish. Meanwhile, the evidence continues to mount ... that the original British intelligence on the Niger connection was genuine, and that Wilson missed it.

What will the Moonbat Left obsess over next? Or will they simply dismiss the impeccably-credentialed Fellow Traveller Hitchens as simply another lackey of the Bushites?

Of all the lunacy in the post 9-11 years, the Valerie Plame "scandal" is the lamest of the lame.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

When Tech meets Textile

Tired of trying to enter data into your PDA, hitting the wrong, tiny, hard-to-see keys with your enormous fargin' fingers?

Then try this wireless, fabric, roll-up keyboard.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 18, 2006

Peace with Jews, or Jews in Pieces?

The pseudonymous Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey attended a "Peace" rally in Cairo, and found it ... very different from the Western versions, in that the protesters were more interested in "Piece" than "Peace," as in blowing Israel and the Jews to pieces.

Yesterday I went to a "Support Lebanon and Palestine" demonstration in front of the medical doctor's syndicate, which was organized by the Al Karama (Dignity) Pan Arabist Nasserite movement, Kefaya and youth for change -- basically all leftist organizations -- along with other individuals from palestinian, lebanese and syrian origin. I went there expecting a Peace demonstration, what I got was a totally different deal.

The people at the demonstration were Chanting seriously anti-Israeli chants, even using ones used by Hamas and Hezbollah. The mood was one of anger. This wasn't a pro-palestinian or Lebanese demonstration as much as it was an anti-Israel demonstration. And no one was particularly calling for peace.

[...]

The signs carried by those protesters say "Long live the armed resistance of Hezbollah" and "The Zionist existence is a crime against Humanity". The chants started calling on every arab country to send in its armies to fight Israel and eliminate it. And talking to the people was an interesting experience as well ... never-mind that Hezbollah are the ones who started this whole thing by kidnapping the 2 israeli soldiers. Nope, not interested in discussing it with you; Israel is behind it all.

I left the demonstration thinking of the American left and their demonstrations in the US. The US left is totally anti-War, any kind of war. Not our left. Our left has always called for War. Actually, the war with Israel and getting rid of Mubarak have always been the only 2 things that the egyptian left and the islamic right have always agreed upon. That's their common ground.

Hmm…

And then when I went home I saw this post by Lisa and it depressed me even more.

It was on a Peace demonstration held in Tel Aviv by the Israeli left, and attended by Arabs, Jews, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi. And From all age groups too.

The signs they carried said "There is no military solution"…. And "In War there are only losers". They chanted anti-War slogans, demanded an end to the bombardment and for the Israeli government to negotiate with Hezbollah. They wanted Peace.

[...]

But then I remembered that we -- the majority of us anyway -- don't want peace with Israel, and are not interested in any real dialogue with them. We weren't then and we are not now. The Entire peace process has always been about getting the land back, not establishing better relations. Even when we do get the land back, it's not enough.

People in Egypt lament daily the Camp David treaty that prevents us from fighting. In Gaza they never stopped trying to attack Israel. In Lebanon Hezbollah continued attacking even after the Israeli withdrawal. And the people -- the majority of the arab population -- support it. Very few of us are really interested in having any lasting Peace or coexistence. I mean, if our left is asking for war, what do you think the rest of the population is thinking?

I think that the Israeli want peace with us because they don't want their lives disrupted. They don't want to have the IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, rockets coming into their towns from Hamas or having to go to wars against Hezbollah to get their soldiers back. I think they want peace because they want their peace of mind. They view us as if we were a headache. We view them as if they are a cancer.

And this is why there will never really be any peace in the middle-east.

Interesting, eh?

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 17, 2006

What happened to Tim Allen?

Just saw the commercial for Tim Allen's latest movie, Zoom.

It looks awful, worse than his last film, which -- based solely on the ads -- was dumber than the Wayan Bros. Little Man.

It's interesting that a comic who had a successful -- if not great -- sitcom, seemingly has terrible taste when it comes to reading scripts.

The Santa Clause (1994!) was cute, and the sci-fi spoof Galaxy Quest (1999) was funny, but nothing -- NOTHING --else he's done has been worth the 99 cents it would cost to rent at the local video store on bargain night.

Have you seen Joe Somebody (2001)? Christmas With The Kranks (2004)? The Shaggy Dog (2006)?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Toy Story (1995) and its progeny were good, and he's been in a few decent-but-forgettable flicks, but nothing notable since Home Improvement went off the air in 1999.

Which is more than I ever intended to say about an amusing comic who's made some rotten movies.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The War Against the West (and The Canary in the Coal Mine)

A couple of great essays caught my eye this weekend, both focusing on the ongoing war against us -- and by "us" I mean non-Muslims who oppose the imposition of a global caliphate -- and the travails of the Israelis, who serve as the West's canaries, forced to take the first breath of the toxic cloud coming from Tehran.

First, Mark Steyn has finally reached his limit when it comes to demands for diplomatic "superstars" to provide the Magic Bullet that will slay the Warwolf.

I was on the road the other night and so found myself watching CNN's coverage of Israel, Lebanon, Gaza, etc. It was "Larry King Live," and it was one of those shows where Larry interviews great men about what needs to be done and the great men all agree that what needs to be done is that the president needs to get other great men involved to "broker" a "deal."

Sen. Chuck Hagel proposed that Bush appoint Colin Powell or Jim Baker as his Special Envoy; Sen. Barbara Boxer proposed that Bush appoint Madeleine Albright as his Even More Special Envoy. Sen. George Mitchell, who himself served as Extra-Special Super-Duper Envoy a few years back, proposed that Bush involve the European Union. And someone else proposed the G-8. And Larry suggested Putin. Oh, and some smooth-talking apologist in Savile Row pinstripes proposed Chirac, because he and Bush had agreed a U.N. resolution on something or other a year or two back.

[...]

And some of the Great Men we send to negotiate aren't all that great: the wretched Mohammed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Authority, is, in fact, a patsy for the nuclear mullahs. To reprise one of my all-time favorite Iranian negotiating positions, let's recall the perfect distillation of what Great Man diplomacy boils down to in the Middle East, as reported in the New York Times exactly a year ago:

"Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Thursday."

If we don't let Iran go nuclear, they'll go nuclear. Negotiate that, Chuck Hagel.

The forces at play in the Middle East are beyond the Geopolitical Friars' Club. The median age in Gaza is 15.8 years old. How likely is it that any of those bespoke Palestinian "moderates" who've been permanent fixtures on CNN and BBC Middle East discussion panels for 30 years have any meaningful sway over a population of unemployed uneducated teenage boys raised by a death cult? Israel withdrew from Gaza and, instead of getting on with a prototypical Palestinian state, Hamas turned the territory into an Islamist camp. Israel withdrew from Lebanon entirely in 2000, yet Hezbollah is now lobbing rockets at Haifa.

Why? Because in both cases these territories are now in effect Iran's land borders with the Zionist Entity. They're "occupied territories" but it's not the Jews doing the occupying. So you've got a choice between talking with proxies or going to the source: Tehran.

And, as the unending talks with the EU have demonstrated, the ayatollahs use negotiations with the civilized world as comedy relief. They don't get Larry King's salutes to Red Buttons and Don Knotts on Iranian TV, so entering into talks with the French foreign minister is as near to big-time laughs as the mullahs get.

[...]

During all the time the Great Men were shuttling back and forth, a kind of toxic globalization occurred: The Palestinian "movement" (insofar as there ever was a genuine nationalist movement) became infected and eventually annexed by hard-core Islamism and the Palestinians' most depraved terror techniques were exported to every corner of the world.

You can build a "security fence" in the region, but what we might call Palestinianism has leapt the psychological fence and incubated in radicalized Muslim communities worldwide: It's not just Palestinians but also Yorkshiremen who now blow themselves up on public transit. What's happened in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria and elsewhere is that the weaknesses of those polities were exploited by Iran and others through various client groups and a potent ideology that's really a virus.

That's a much more cunning and effective strategy than sending a fellow in a suit to concoct a plan in his name. We need to learn from the Iranians. We need to wage war on the ideology, because until we do, the reality is that the Middle East's fetid "stability," its demography, its remorseless nuclearization and proxy militarization all favor Israel's and our enemies.

Read the whole thing.

The other essay, from the Toronto Sun, asks it's readers (again), "[H]ow long the civilized world would continue to deny the reality of a war declared on it by modern day al-Qaida bandits and their global affiliates?"

In the aftermath of the most recent terrorist bombings of passenger trains in Mumbai, India, evidence of the civilized world's continued reluctance to respond adequately and with conviction to the asymmetrical warfare unleashed by Islamists has become more alarming than the irrefutable depravity of al-Qaida terrorists.

The culture of denial among the weak and the corrupt is an admission of incapacity by these people of managing the world they inhabit.

Denial in such circumstance demonstrates preference of an inconsequential people for a nostalgic past or an improbable future rather than contending with requirements of the present. When denial becomes the reflexive response of the strong then it is an evasion of responsibility -- instead of doing what is self-evidently right, an escape is sought in the labyrinth of legalism and fake morality.

Islamists have succeeded this far in turning the strength of democracies to their advantage. They have exploited the restraint of modern civilization that opts in criminal justice for proportionality, restitution and rehabilitation as evidence of guilt and weakness.

Islamists declared war on the modern world much before Sept. 11, 2001. But the modern world -- despite President George Bush's leadership and effort since 9/11 -- opted instead to study the neuroses of Islamists, discover root causes of their depravity, offer palliatives by acknowledging their grievances as legitimate, and view the warfare launched by them merely as a problem of domestic law and order.

I wrote last year, "Bandits win, if they win at all, when lawfully organized society is drained of its will to eliminate banditry from its midst."

The bandits of al-Qaida are winning -- growing probably in relative strength of membership, resources, ingenuity in striking their enemy and intimidating neutrals -- because democracies remain in denial of what is self-evident in the recent carnage in Mumbai and the continued low level warfare in Kashmir as an integral part of India.

What is required in destroying irreversibly these modern day bandits and their war against the modern world is taking a page from history in the war democracies fought in the last century against German-Italian fascism and Japanese militarism.

In August 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt met in secret and announced the Atlantic Charter as response to the fascists in Europe.

The principle of this Charter -- bringing the resources of democracies together in winning the war unconditionally -- was extended to defeating Japan after its Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

The time is long past to wait upon a corrupt and cynical United Nations to devise a response that should have been prompted by 9/11.

The Charter against terrorism can only be promulgated by democracies with the legitimacy that authorities derive from the will of their people based on the rule of law. Such a Charter would strategically unite the world's most powerful democracy, the United States, with the world's largest democracy, India, and bring together Britain, Australia, Canada, Israel and Japan with invitation to others to join in the common effort to crush Islamist terrorists and those who shelter them.

Unless such a Charter is devised we will continue to have our modern version of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

Why do I suspect the State Department careerists are counseling us to apply rosin to our bows? Pass the Stradivarius, will you?

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Now that's good eatin'!

A restaurant with something to hate for every liberal moonbat group!

The seared animal flesh was delicious, and I didn't mind dining beneath the taxidermied eyes of the critters adorning the walls, either.

The restaurant, located in St. George, Utah, also had old rifles and pistols hanging from the walls, making for a real Western meal.

Highly recommended if you're in the neighborhood.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 16, 2006

New York Times: They've finally taken a side

Via Michelle Malkin comes word that the NY Times has finally decided to come down in favor of one side in the fight over in Iraq.

Which side are they on? The New York Times settles the question definitively with a hysterical, unreality-based lead editorial today recycling the BDS attacks on the War on Terror--but even more so with this disgusting pictorial tribute to Iraqi terrorists killing American soldiers, spotted by the vigilant Charles Johnson at LGF. The picture featured by the Times is just one of many being hawked here as a photo compilation titled "In the Company of God by award-winning New York Times photographer, Joao Silva."

Malkin links to an outstanding quote by Jeff Goldstein.

Writes Times assistant managing editor for photography Michele McNally of a photo taken by NYT photographer Joao Silva showing an al-Sadr army sniper in the act of firing on US troops, “Right there with the Mahdi army. Incredible courage.”

Incredible courage? Well, far be it for me to question such self-congratulatory enthusiasm, but it seems to me that actual “incredible courage” would have entailed, say, Joao Silva getting word to US troops, or bumrushing the sniper and beating him unconscious with a heavy telephoto lens.

Whereas what we’ve witnessed here is the product of (admittedly) dangerous opportunism in the service of plaudits and cocktail party invites.

But then, I’m still into the whole bourgeois nationalism thing.

Disgusting. Simply depraved. It's one thing for us to see photos taken by the enemy of their terrorists in the act of killing GIs. It's entirely something else to see employees of U.S. media doing the same thing.

Oh, wait. Enemy media, U.S. media, it's all the same.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 13, 2006

It's Wartime, folks!

As the Middle East seems to be entering the first phase of the latest Arab-Israeli War, I found an interesting perspective on the conflict, courtesy of an Egyptian blogger, Sandmonkey. This is a lengthy excerpt, but it's also exceptionally interesting.

Good morning everyone. It's time for us to resume our coverage of the little egomanical exercise in insanity called the Hezbollah kidnappings of Israeli soldiers , and the Israeli "We don't know how the fuck to respond but let's bomb everything" retaliation Policy.

The region is ruled by insanity, madness beckons, and War is on everyone's mind. No one is surprised though. After all, in the middle east, this is business as usual.

The responses of the people in Egypt are … interesting. My dad's view is that comic sadness "Those poor lebanese. Every single time they rebuild Beirut, it gets destroyed, so they rebuild it again, and it gets destroyed again. It's like a Seesaw!", while my co-worker H. response is of "We should go to War, and attack Israel, if we have any sembelnce of diginity or self-respect. War War war, rah rah rah, blah blah blah", all said while he lounges confortably in his leather chair, in an airconditioned Office, while sipping on the morning Coffee that the Office-boys have made them. I love Chair-warriors, you know, the people who egg on the war from their desks. Of course they are cheering Hezbollah, what do they have to lose?

The interesting and new thing is the view that Israel can not do shit, one that is held by the political, combat and strategic warfare analysts and experts that occupy our accounting department. It goes something like this: Israel can't do shit, because for the first time Hezbollah's rockets are capable of attacking them inside their territories. That they are not attacking Hezbollah's outposts because they can't afford to, which is why they blow up the airports and the powergrids, because they can't really attack Hezbollah. Jamal, a lebanese blogger, shares their same sentiment that this is all but a storm in a teacup:

Hezbollah did their thing in the morning and and then sat back and watched . Israel hit roads and nothing else.

Why?

Because any further escalation would give Hezbollah the right (per the April 1996 Agreement) to hit back.

Power station for power station. Tourist season for Tourist Season.

Israel knows Hezbollah rockets are in place, ready, aimed and can reach deep into Israel. 15,000 of them. And that's even before the "surprise".

Israel had to retaliate. No way they could let an act of aggression by Hezbollah go "unpunished." So they barked, hit roads, and killed civilians. In the end they will sit down and negotiate.

Hezbollah acted unilaterally and they will get some criticism for it in Lebanon, especially for endangering the precious tourist season. However, regionally they got millions of admirers for being the only group in the world to do something about the rape of Gaza. Sure, Nasrallah insists today was all about Lebanon and Lebanese POWs, but who is he kidding. It wasn't and there is no shame in that.

At the end of the day Hezbollah proves they are strong, very strong actually, and Israel is not used to dealing with a strong foe.

Hmmm……….

Now, since we are all strategic warfare experts here, the question begs itself, what should Israel do?

Should they lay down their arms, and be forever humiliated by Hezbollah? Should they move the ground forces into Lebanon, and engage in Guerilla warfare on Hezbollah territory? Or should they just resort to the Kosovo option, and Carpet bomb Southern Lebanon to the stone age? Or should they just attack Syria, because let's face it, they are the ones behind that shit anyway?

Well, laying down the arms and open negotiations is a humiliating but viable option, altough it will encourage future kidnappings to get future concessions, so they will probably say no to that.

The ground forces move? Maybe good to estbalish a buffer zone to stop missile attacks into Israel, but the lives saved from getting killed by a rocket will have an equal life lost on the battlefield with Hezbollah.

The Kosovo option is viable, and offers the lowest casualty rate on the Israeli side, but thousands of Lebanese people will do, who, while they may be Hezbollah supporters, ehh, it just doesn't look good in the international community's eyes. But then again, since when does Israel care what the world says anyway? It's not like they were ever on their side. Right?

This leaves us with the "Let's Bomb Syria" option, and interestingly, that's the one favored by a Lebanese blogger as well:

Some independent people in Lebanon might start thinking that the only solution is to move the conflict to Syria and Iran. The country is on the brink of destruction, especially after the Israeli prime
minister threatened to take the country back 20 years. Hizbullah and the cabinet do not care enough.

It is unlikely that the international community will save Lebanon now. Why should they? Even Saad Hariri’s media has gone soft on Hizbullah all of a sudden. So the only logical thing for some might be to actively support forces opposed to the Assad regime and Tehran.

Since the Lebanese army is not interested in defending the Lebanese state, then some free Lebanese might consider funding and arming militant units to work on Syrian and Iranian territories, targeting Syrian and Iranian infrastructure. There is no reason why Lebanon should lose bridges and Damascus and Tehran don’t.

After all, we are all in this together, right?

As for Israel’s leaders, perhaps they should listen to Nasrallah for once. Bombing Lebanon will not deter anyone. Olmert is a wimp with high-tech war toys. A mighty power such as Israel has to go after the real source and stop the cheap targeting of Lebanese infrastructure and civilians. But Israeli leaders are still choosing the easy way out.

Instead of picking enemies their own size in Damascus and Tehran, they pick to destroy the livelihood of innocents and kill and maim civilians, feeding the backward resistance culture that pervades the
region.

The scale of the Israeli retaliation today, Lebanese responsibility aside, was cowardly. If Hizbullah showers them with rockets, then they have asked for it. Their army was even humiliated by Hizbullah fighters, so they took it out on bridges and roads, harming the interests of the same people that Hizbullah has hijacked with their help. This will serve to reinforce Israel’s image as a terrorist bully in a region of masochists.

That same call is repeated by him again here:

YOU GOT WHAT YOU WANTED NASRALLAH.

NOW SHOW US WHAT YOU CAN DO.

SHOW US YOUR MIGHT.

USE THOSE ROCKETS.

LEBANON IS BEING DESTROYED AND ALL I CAN THINK OF IS YOUR FACE.

DAMN YOU.

AS FOR THE ISRAELI COWARDS, GO FLEX YOUR MUSCLES IN DAMASCUS AND TEHRAN. COWARDS.

This move would make the best strategic sense for Israel and Lebanon. If they managed to bomb Syria and kill Bashar, a power struggle will emerge in the syrian government and the revolution that all the sects want to engage in against the alawites will take place. The In-fighting would cut-off military support to Hezbollah, but would also free Lebanon from Syrian tutelage, and would weaken Hezbollah to the degree that it can't bully the other Lebanese sects anymore, allowing the Lebanese to finally move forward. As Big Pharoh quoted one of the Lebanese commenters on an FPM site: " This could be a positive for Lebanon. Israel might disarm Hezbollah for them."

The sentiments on the rest of the Lebanese blogsphere, while may not be calling for the bombing of Syria yet, are definitely very angry at Hezbollah. Mustapha calls their actions a "Fatal overreach"

Like I said, an interesting perspective from the other side of the fence.

Fascinating that, while Pres. Bush urges "restraint," some Arabs are calling on Israel to broaden the attack.

Interesting -- and dangerous -- times.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:21 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

July 12, 2006

Hulagirl Hibiscus

Nighttime shot with the Canon A-80, handheld at 1/25 second, f2.8.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:39 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Air Force chickenshit puts GIs at risk

Strategy Page reports that the UAVs -- the remote-controlled aircraft relied upon by the infantry grunts -- may end up grounded, unless the Army and Marines file flightplans before using them.

The U.S. Army and Air Force continue to be locked in a fierce battle over who controls the air space above the battlefield.

It comes down to this; the air force insists that army UAVs have to play by manned aircraft rules. That means filing a flight plan with the air force, 24-72 hours in advance. The air force is insistent on this because all army UAVs lack transponders, so it is difficult for manned aircraft, or air force air controllers, to spot UAVs, and avoid collisions. From the air force point of view, this all works. Army helicopters and air force combat aircraft can get to where they are needed quickly and safely.

But the ground combat officers see it differently, and that's why this is turning into a brawl. For the guys on the ground, the UAVs have become a matter of life and death, and they rarely know 24 hours in advance that they will need them. In some cases, commanders have been sending the UAVs up without the correct paperwork, and risking court-martial in the process.

To the soldiers, the UAV is less of an obstacle to other aircraft than artillery and stray bullets. The air force (and army helicopters) have long since learned how to coexist with shells and bullets. So why not use the same rules for UAVs.

The air force is adamant that the UAVs have to eventually get transponders (which may take a while for under ten pound UAVs), and continue to play by the rules used for manned aircraft. The air force takes additional heat because there have not been any UAV collisions with their aircraft (which tend to stay above altitudes used by army UAVs), and those that have occurred were between army helicopters and small UAVs. No injuries yet, but the potential is there.

The ground commanders also point out that they are exposed to all sorts of firepower on the ground, while the air force hardly takes any casualties at all. That is only important insofar as restrictions on the use of army UAVs does not make air force people any safer, but does put more soldiers in danger.

The ground troops really, really want to use their UAVs freely. When American forces entered Iraq in 2003, they brought fewer than two dozen UAVs with them. Now there are nearly a thousand in service. But, as far the army is concerned, the air force restrictions are killing people.

Paul Fussell, the historian, author, infantry officer and veteran of the fight against the Wehrmacht, wrote about -- hell, he defined -- military chickenshit, in his book "Wartime."

Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige... insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances. Chickenshit is so called -- instead of horse -- or bull -- or elephant shit -- because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously. Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war.

The Air Force brass needs to get its collective head out of its ass, before it achieves what the folks at Strategy Page said in their headline: Pilots Killing Soldiers With Red Tape.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

More guns, less crime

In my post about safer roads with higher speeds (Can't drive 55), I mentioned that the safety nazis were similarly flabbergasted by the counter-intuitive (to them) result that more liberal gun laws resulted in . . . wait for it . . . less violent crime.

David Kopel reports that Florida, the original shall-issue concealed-carry state -- that anti-Second Amendment activists like the Brady Campaign claimed would see the streets run red with the blood of yahoos gunning and running over parking spaces -- has seen another drop in crime.

Florida is, of course, the inventor of liberalized handgun concealed carry permits, of "castle doctrine" laws that allow lethal force in self defense without having to retreat, and a few other such measures.

Naturally, the Brady Campaign used Florida as their poster child for a gun-crazy state. Brady began an advertising campaign to warn tourists against entering this dangerous state.

"The 'Shoot First' law is a new law in Florida that police, prosecuting attorneys and gun violence prevention advocates worry may lead to the reckless use of guns on the streets of Florida cities." Sarah Brady intoned, "The net effect of the new 'Shoot First' law in Florida is, unfortunately, precisely what we feared. People are dying who did not deserve to die." Just for good measure, Brady added "Gun violence in Florida could increase in 2005 because Congress failed to renew the federal assault weapon ban, which expired last fall, and Florida has no state law restricting assault weapons or rapid-fire ammunition magazines. Florida also does not require background checks at gun shows, does not require child-safety locks to be sold with guns, does not have any handgun safety standards to limit Saturday night specials and even forces police to let people carry hidden handguns in public."

Well, the Palm Beach Post reports that Florida's crime rates have fallen to the lowest level since 1971. "A telephone message left for comment after hours with the The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, D.C. was not immediately returned."

You can get the report, in pdf format, here. It shows that, even though the state's population is growing, total homicides fell by 6.9%, and firearm homicides by 6.1%. Given the population increase, the decrease in rates would have been greater.

The anti-gun folks like to respond that crime would have fallen anyhow, tracking with general trends, and the increase in guns -- and the more liberalized self-defense and no-need-to-retreat laws had nothing to do with said decrease.

But then, they've always claimed that guns cause crime, triggering homicidal impulses in the monkey brains of gun owners. Following their own logic, more guns must have an effect on the incidence of crime, must result in more shootings of innocent women, children, Bambi, Thumper and Flipper, too.

Well, they're right. Guns do have an effect on crime; it's just not the one they hoped for.

What a bunch of maroons.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 11, 2006

Coolest motorcycle -- er, tank -- um, thingie ever

It reminds me a little of the Kettenkraftrad of Wehrmacht fame, and, unsurprisingly, this prototype was designed by a couple of Germans.

Details over at Gizmodo.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Obituary to die for

If Fred Clark's obituary is any indication, he was a guy I would have liked.

Frederic Arthur (Fred) Clark, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other's courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle as a result of an automobile accident on June 18, 2006. True to Fred's personal style, his final hours were spent joking with medical personnel while he whimpered, cussed, begged for narcotics and bargained with God to look over his wife and kids.

He loved his family. His heart beat faster when his wife of 37 years Alice Rennie Clark entered the room and saddened a little when she left. His legacy was the good works performed by his sons, Frederic Arthur Clark III and Andrew Douglas Clark MD, PhD., along with Andy's wife, Sara Morgan Clark.

Fred's back straightened and chest puffed out when he heard the Star Spangled Banner and his eyes teared when he heard Amazing Grace. He wouldn't abide self important tight *censored*. Always an interested observer of politics, particularly what the process does to its participants, he was amused by politician's outrage when we lie to them and amazed at what the voters would tolerate. His final wishes were "throw the bums out and don't elect lawyers" (though it seems to make little difference).

During his life he excelled at mediocrity. He loved to hear and tell jokes, especially short ones due to his limited attention span. He had a life long love affair with bacon, butter, cigars and bourbon. You always knew what Fred was thinking much to the dismay of his friend and family. His sons said of Fred, "he was often wrong, but never in doubt".

When his family was asked what they remembered about Fred, they fondly recalled how Fred never peed in the shower - on purpose. He died at MCV Hospital and sadly was deprived of his final wish which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a double date to include his wife, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to crash an ACLU cocktail party.

In lieu of flowers, Fred asks that you make a sizable purchase at your local ABC store or Virginia winery (please, nothing French - the *censored*) and get rip roaring drunk at home with someone you love or hope to make love to. Word of caution though, don't go out in public to drink because of the alcohol related laws our elected officials have passed due to their inexplicable terror at the sight of a MADD lobbyist and overwhelming compulsion to meddle in our lives.

No funeral or service is planned. However, a party will be held to celebrate Fred's life. It will be held in Midlothian, Va. Email fredsmemory@yahoo.com for more information.

Fred's ashes will be fired from his favorite cannon at a private party on the Great Wicomico River where he had a home for 25 years. Additionally, all of Fred's friend (sic) will be asked to gather in a phone booth, to be designated in the future, to have a drink and wonder, "Fred who?"

Fred, I'm raising a glass of single-malt scotch in your honor as I publish this post.

Rest in peace, fella.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Santa Ynez winery tour, cont'd

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:47 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Are journalists patriots?

Well, they sure don't seem to have an interest in what happens to our GIs, preferring to voice outrage over the treatment of the enemy at our hands.

The folks at Powerline note a revealing statistic.

A friend in Washington decided to research the Washington Post's coverage of the kidnapping and murder of Privates Menchaca and Tucker in comparison of alleged misdeeds by American troops:

I asked my intern to do a little research today because yesterday's WashPost outlook section was just so over-the-top in its anti-American soldier articles.

I asked him to check how many article/editorials the Post did regarding the two soldiers who were grotesquely tortured, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.

There are 7 news articles in all. 2 or 3 of the articles are actually amalgamations of Iraq-related news stories. There are no editorials. One of the articles actually groups the kidnapping of the 2 soldiers together with a story about US soldiers charged with murdering Iraqis. When I put in a search for the names of the 2 soldiers plus the word "torture" nothing came up. The last of the 7 was published on 6/28/06.

I'm sure you'll be gratified to know that when I typed in the word "Haditha" the search turned up 149 Washington Post hits, including editorials and news items. Since June 19th (the day after the first news story re: the 2 soldiers appeared), there have been 12 items published in WaPo on Haditha, compared to 7 on the soldiers.

When I typed in "Abu Ghraib" the search engine stalled because the search would've returned more than 1000 documents.

I think the over-the-top coverage of Abu Ghraib, the prison where no one died after it was reclaimed from Saddam Hussein, is the definitive proof of the American media's bias against its own soldiers.

So, back to my question, "Are journalists patriots?" Let me ask another question. If the MSM is rooting against the GIs -- not an unreasonable conclusion, given the smidgen of ink spilled over the GIs, versus the torrent over Haditha and Abu Ghraib -- who do you think they're rooting for?

What do you think? Are they patriots?

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:34 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 10, 2006

This is our enemy

Given that the American media can't wait to bury stories that might enrage us, remind us who we're fighting and why, it's great that the enemy keeps sending these tidbits to stoke the fires.

PARIS (AFP) - The Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda put on the Internet a video showing the mutilated bodies of two US soldiers kidnapped in June and executed to "avenge" an Iraqi woman raped near Mahmudiyah south of Baghdad.

"Here is a film on the remains of the bodies of the two American soldiers kidnapped near Yussufiyah (south of Baghdad). We are showing it to avenge our sister who was raped by a soldier belonging to the same division as these two soldiers," said a preamble by the Mujahedeen Al-Shura Council, an Al-Qaeda dominated alliance of armed Sunni groups in Iraq.

[...]

"Praise God, they captured two soldiers from the same division as this vile crusader. Here are the remains ... to rejoice the hearts of the faithful," the statement said.

The nearly five-minute film shows the horribly mutilated bodies of the two soldiers, who had had their throats cut. The head of one of them was held high by an armed man, like a trophy. The head of the other was being stamped on by another armed man.

The film is accompanied by extracts of old speeches by the head of the Al-Qaeda terror group, Osama bin Laden, and the ex-head of its Iraqi wing Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who was killed June 7 by the US Army.

The Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda announced on June 20 it had executed the two American soldiers whose bodies were found south of Baghdad.

Those mutilated corpses used to be Pfc. Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon, and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas, who volunteered to protect and defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If we capture the savages who did this to our GIs, the ACLU and the Supreme Court believe they're entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions.

I, on the other hand, concur with Ralph Peters, who says that the recent Supreme Court ruling militates in favor of our GIs simply not taking prisoners.

Which, of course, means killing them all on the battlefield, which is consistent with the Geneva Convetions.

Violent Islamist extremists must be killed on the battlefield. Only in the rarest cases should they be taken prisoner. Few have serious intelligence value. And, once captured, there's no way to dispose of them.

Killing terrorists during a conflict isn't barbaric or immoral - or even illegal. We've imposed rules upon ourselves that have no historical or judicial precedent. We haven't been stymied by others, but by ourselves.

The oft-cited, seldom-read Geneva and Hague Conventions define legal combatants as those who visibly identify themselves by wearing uniforms or distinguishing insignia (the latter provision covers honorable partisans - but no badges or armbands, no protection). Those who wear civilian clothes to ambush soldiers or collect intelligence are assassins and spies - beyond the pale of law.

Traditionally, those who masquerade as civilians in order to kill legal combatants have been executed promptly, without trial. Severity, not sloppy leftist pandering, kept warfare within some decent bounds at least part of the time. But we have reached a point at which the rules apply only to us, while our enemies are permitted unrestricted freedom.

The present situation encourages our enemies to behave wantonly, while crippling our attempts to deal with terror.

Consider today's norm: A terrorist in civilian clothes can explode an IED, killing and maiming American troops or innocent civilians, then demand humane treatment if captured - and the media will step in as his champion. A disguised insurgent can shoot his rockets, throw his grenades, empty his magazines, kill and wound our troops, then, out of ammo, raise his hands and demand three hots and a cot while he invents tales of abuse.

[...]

Isn't it time we gave our critics what they're asking for? Let's solve the "unjust" imprisonment problem, once and for all. No more Guantanamos! Every terrorist mission should be a suicide mission. With our help.

[...]

This isn't an argument for a murderous rampage, but its opposite. We must kill our enemies with discrimination. But we do need to kill them. A corpse is a corpse: The media's rage dissipates with the stench. But an imprisoned terrorist is a strategic liability.

Nor should we ever mistreat captured soldiers or insurgents who adhere to standing conventions. On the contrary, we should enforce policies that encourage our enemies to identify themselves according to the laws of war. Ambiguity works to their advantage, never to ours.

Our policy toward terrorists and insurgents in civilian clothing should be straightforward and public: Surrender before firing a shot or taking hostile action toward our troops, and we'll regard you as a legal prisoner. But once you've pulled a trigger, thrown a grenade or detonated a bomb, you will be killed. On the battlefield and on the spot.

Isn't that common sense? It also happens to conform to the traditional conduct of war between civilized nations. Ignorant of history, we've talked ourselves into folly.

And by the way: How have the terrorists treated the uniformed American soldiers they've captured? According to the Geneva Convention?

Sadly, even our military has been infected by political correctness. Some of my former peers will wring their hands and babble about "winning hearts and minds." But we'll never win the hearts and minds of terrorists. And if we hope to win the minds, if not the hearts, of foreign populations, we must be willing to kill the violent, lawless fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population determined to terrorize the rest.

[...]

It is not humane to spare fanatical murderers. It is not humane to play into our enemy's hands. And it is not humane to endanger our troops out of political correctness.

Instead of worrying over trumped-up atrocities in Iraq (the media give credence to any claim made by terrorists), we should stop apologizing and take a stand. That means firm rules for the battlefield, not Gumby-speak intended to please critics who'll never be satisfied by anything America does.

The ultimate act of humanity in the War on Terror is to win. To do so, we must kill our enemies wherever we encounter them. He who commits an act of terror forfeits every right he once possessed.

It's a war, folks. It's past time for Americans to accept that fact, and to pick a side. Me, I'm against the head-chopping, throat-cutting jihadis.

How 'bout you?

UPDATE

If you can stand it, Rusty Shackleford has posted both the video and photos of what those bastards did to our GIs. It's terribly gruesome, but in some sense I believe we must look at what evil has wrought, inspect the Devil's handiwork, and draw strength and resolve from our rage and horror.

To look away is to avoid confronting the true nature of our enemies, and PFC Thomas and PFC Menchaca deserve better than moral preening and posturing. They deserve vengeance.

Shame on Pres. Bush for not echoing the order given by Russian Pres. Putin to his Spetznatz commandos, after jihadis kidnapped, tortured and murdered Russian diplomats: Hunt them down and destroy them.

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:40 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Be careful what you wish for

When Tom "The Hammer" DeLay left Congress, triumphant Democrats filed a lawsuit to keep his name on the ballot, figuring that the so-called scandal would taint any other Republicans on the ticket -- and prevent any other candidate for the seat appearing for the GOP, meaning that the Dems could win the seat without any campaigning, or money.

A federal court has backed their play, ruling that DeLay's name will stay on the ballot, which means the Texas Democrats are happy, right? I suppose, except that DeLay says if his name is on the ballot, then he's going to run hell-bent-for-leather to win the election.

D'OH!

Captain Ed has the details.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Unfortunate Choice of Words Award

In an article about whether or not a retarded teen should be able to "graduate" with her normal classmates from a New Jersey high school, the executive director for the Mississippi Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, said, "To have to fight something like this, which is a no-brainer, really set me off."

"No-brainer"?

How insensitive.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 09, 2006

Enemy at the Gates

The cats were in a mood, ready to show Bogie who ruled the roost; the pugnacious Pepper was especially hostile, his recent bloody dispatch of a gopher seeming to have only whetted his appetite for opening a can of whup ass on his fellow critters.

Usually eager to play outside, Bogie seemed to consider the prospect less enticing than usual -- given the reception committee waiting for him at the door. He much preferred the company of the easily-vanquished Mean Kitty, discarded after a sound thrashing at the hands (?) of our intrepid hound.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:15 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 08, 2006

Can't drive 55

I always hated the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit, that hangover from the Carter Administration. Yeah, I know it was instituted in '74, but in spirit and effect it fit Jimmah's sour pessimism like his turn-down-the-thermostat sweaters.

When the double nickel was repealed in 1995, the safety nazis went crazy, warning of the impending bloodbath on the highways sure to ensue as we speed-crazed yokels put the pedal to the metal and turned the interstates into demolition derbies.

The doom-sayers had much in common with the critics of shall-issue laws passing in Florida, enabling Regular Joes to carry concealed weapons. Some of the same people were seen sobbing, wailing, gnashing their teeth at the prospect of gun battles over parking places.

Only problem is, both scenarios failed to materialize. As a matter of fact, as counter-intuitive as it may seem to some, faster speeds and more guns have served to make the highways and byways safer.

The Wall Street Journal took a look at the statistics this week, in the Op/Ed piece Safe At Any Speed (take that, Ralph Nader!), and they're disappointing -- if you want to tell your neighbors to slow the hell down.

It's another summer weekend, when millions of families pack up the minivan or SUV and hit the road. So this is also an apt moment to trumpet some good, and underreported, news: Driving on the highways is safer today than ever before.

In 2005, according to new data from the National Highway Safety Administration, the rate of injuries per mile traveled was lower than at any time since the Interstate Highway System was built 50 years ago. The fatality rate was the second lowest ever, just a tick higher than in 2004.

As a public policy matter, this steady decline is a vindication of the repeal of the 55 miles per hour federal speed limit law in 1995. That 1974 federal speed limit was arguably the most disobeyed and despised law since Prohibition. "Double nickel," as it was often called, was first adopted to save gasoline during the Arab oil embargo, though later the justification became saving lives. But to Westerners with open spaces and low traffic density, the law became a symbol of the heavy hand of the federal nanny state. To top it off, Congress would deny states their own federal highway construction dollars if they failed to comply.

In repealing the law, the newly minted Republican majority in Congress declared that states were free to impose their own limits. Many states immediately took up this nod to federalism by raising their limits to 70 or 75 mph. Texas just raised its speed limit again on rural highways to 80.

This may seem non-controversial now, but at the time the debate was shrill and filled with predictions of doom. Ralph Nader claimed that "history will never forgive Congress for this assault on the sanctity of human life." Judith Stone, president of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, predicted to Katie Couric on NBC's "Today Show" that there would be "6,400 added highway fatalities a year and millions of more injuries." Federico Pena, the Clinton Administration's Secretary of Transportation, declared: "Allowing speed limits to rise above 55 simply means that more Americans will die and be injured on our highways."

We now have 10 years of evidence proving that the only "assault" was on the sanctity of the truth. The nearby table shows that the death, injury and crash rates have fallen sharply since 1995. Per mile traveled, there were about 5,000 fewer deaths and almost one million fewer injuries in 2005 than in the mid-1990s. This is all the more remarkable given that a dozen years ago Americans lacked today's distraction of driving while also talking on their cell phones.

Of the 31 states that have raised their speed limits to more than 70 mph, 29 saw a decline in the death and injury rate and only two--the Dakotas--have seen fatalities increase. Two studies, by the National Motorists Association and by the Cato Institute, have compared crash data in states that raised their speed limits with those that didn't and found no increase in deaths in the higher speed states.

[...]

The tragedy is that 43,000 Americans still die on the roads every year, or about 15 times the number of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq. Car accidents remain a leading cause of death among teenagers in particular. The Interstate Highway System is nonetheless one of the greatest public works programs in American history, and the two-thirds decline in road deaths per mile traveled since the mid-1950s has been a spectacular achievement. Tough drunk driving laws, better road technology, and such improving auto safety features as power steering and brakes are all proven life savers.

We are often told, by nanny-state advocates, that such public goods as safety require a loss of liberty. In the case of speed limits and traffic deaths, that just isn't so.

Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord and pass the Hi-Test! Now if we could only get the slow-poke drivers to stop putt-putting in the fast lane.

Move over, buddy; can't drive 75!

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Saturday Squiggy

Squiggy called a meeting of the board. First order of business: unfair canine favoritism. Proposal: More pictures emphasizing the artistic qualities of felines shall be featured on the blog.

All in favor, say "Meow." All opposed? The vote being one in favor, none opposed, the measure passes.

Meeting is adjourned.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 07, 2006

Celebrating Denigrating Independence Day

How did the Los Angeles Times commemorate the 4th of July?

Well, at least in part, by running an opinion piece by a self-hating American author, Mark Kurlansky, titled, WWFFD? Who cares? Let's stop fussing about what America's founders thought, and let our minds run free.

SOMEONE HAS TO SAY IT or we are never going to get out of this rut: I am sick and tired of the founding fathers and all their intents.

The real American question of our times is how our country in a little over 200 years sank from the great hope to the most backward democracy in the West. The U.S. offers the worst healthcare program, one of the worst public school systems and the worst benefits for workers. The margin between rich and poor has been growing precipitously while it has been decreasing in Europe. Among the great democracies, we use military might less cautiously, show less respect for international law and are the stumbling block in international environmental cooperation. Few informed people look to the United States anymore for progressive ideas.

"The most backward democracy in the West"? I'm not sure how he defines "backward," but I suspect he's referring to the majority of voters who didn't pull the lever for Kerry or Gore, who won't turn Congress over to the Democrats.

Where to begin? The U.S. healthcare system is so awful that our neighbors to the Great White North, blessed with every Socialist's wet dream, i.e., government-run "free" medical care for all, are coming to the U.S. of freakin' A. to get the surgeries they can't get in Canada.

That we have a terrible public school system gets no argument from me, but then again, it's been destroyed by the teachers' unions, working hand-in-hand with leftists to do away with the classic teaching techniques that produced well-educated young people ready to enter the workforce from the 19th century thought the early 1960s. "Mainstreaming" retarded kids, children with autism, doing away with "gifted" teaching tracks, forcing teachers to teach to the slowest kid in the classroom, and most of all, social promotion and failing to expel disruptive students have devastated public schools.

But don't even lay any of that at the feet of Conservatives; that's all you, Comrade.

As to workers' benefits, yeah, those Europeans have it made. Great benefits, but stagnant economies, with crushing taxes and rampant unemployment. Remember the riots in France earlier this year? French employers wanted the ability to do something outrageous: fire bad workers.

Fascist bastards! They're almost as bad as American capitalists.

Heh.

The author of the piece tips his hand with the line about growing inequality between rich and poor in the U.S., as opposed to the disappearing gap between the classes in Europe.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, right, Comrade?

Bloody communist.

We ought to do something. Instead, we keep worrying about the vision of a bunch of sexist, slave-owning 18th century white men in wigs and breeches. Even in the 18th century, the founding fathers were not the most enlightened thinkers available. They were the ones whose ideas prevailed. Those who favored independence but were not in favor of war are not called founding fathers. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania — with whom John Adams bitterly fought in the Constitutional Congress of 1776 because Dickinson did not believe it was necessary to engage in bloody warfare in order to achieve independence — is not a founding father.

Those opposed to war with England are not Founding Fathers because they weren't in favor of independence from the King, you twit. They were Royalists. And apples are not oranges, dogs are not cats.

You could speak out against slavery and still be a founding father, as long as you did not insist on its abolition, as many did who aren't in the pantheon.

The Constitution produced by the founding fathers lacked the enlightenment of some of the colonial charters of several generations earlier, most notably the laws of Pennsylvania that barred slavery, refused to raise militias and insisted on fair-minded treaties with Indians. Benjamin Franklin despised these "Quaker laws" of his colony and even published a pamphlet denouncing the Pennsylvania Assembly for not sending young men to fight the French and Indians.

That warmongering Ben Franklin: the Donald Rumsfeld of the 18th century. Of course, he's not the only one to despise pacifists. Lord knows, I do, too. And while the Founding Fathers couldn't resolve the disgrace of slavery, we did as a nation engage in a savage civil war, did spill the blood of hundreds of thousands of . . . white Christians within eighty years of the signing of Declaration of Independence.

And let's not forget that the Constitution, in a provision often cited -- mistakenly, ignorantly by people like the author as proof of the racism of the Founding Fathers -- counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the census, not because they were thought of as sub-human, but to deny the slave states greater representation in Congress, where seats are apportioned in the House on the basis of population.

In other words, the three-fifths rule hurt the pro-slavery states.

To be honest, the U.S. was never as good as it was supposed to be. Perhaps no nation is. Henry David Thoreau wrote of nations, "The historian strives in vain to make them memorable." Even in the first few decades, most Europeans who came to see the great new experiment were disappointed. Writer after writer, from British novelist Charles Dickens to the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, arrived to discover less than they imagined. Tocqueville observed of American character: "They unceasingly harass you to extort praise and if you resist their entreaties, they fall to praising themselves."

Fanny Trollope, the English writer, made a similar observation in 1832: "A slight word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood." I have no doubt the response to this article will show an America still unwilling to be criticized. But it is difficult for a society that accepts no criticism to progress.

Ooh, Europeans, in their lace, brocade and powdered wigs, looking down their noses at us unsophisticated colonial rubes. I see some things never change.

Of course, Tocqueville also said, "Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

And he recognized the volatile nature of American society, the opportunities available to all, so different from the ossified regimes in Europe: "Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him."

Slavery was the most celebrated flaw of the founding fathers, but they also set the stage for the genocide of about 10 million American Indians and did not even entirely reject colonialism. They believed that it was wrong to tax colonists who did not have representation in the legislature, but the tax, not the lack of representation, was the grievance. They were affluent men of property, and they hated paying taxes. Ironically, they repeatedly used words like "enslavement" and "slavery" to criticize taxes while at the same time accepting real slavery.

Boo-frickin'-hoo. Like I said, Americans killed each other by the bushel over slavery. They paid their debt to the slaves in blood, brother against brother, for four long years. As to the Indians, yeah, they got a raw deal. But let's not kid ourselves, they didn't live some Garden-of-Eden existence when it was just Indians and buffalo from sea to shining sea. American Indians practiced slavery, cannibalism, human sacrifice, torture, and constant warfare between the tribes, and they devastated the environment, too. Terrible violence and short, brutal lives were the norm long before the Mayflower dropped anchor at Plymouth Rock.

And isn't interesting how the author mocks the link between taxes and slavery? Of course, socialist theory posits that economics and capitalism makes workers into slaves, albeit without actual chains.

The founding fathers were all men of the establishment who wanted what Robespierre sneeringly called, when his own French Revolution was accused of excess, "a revolution without a revolution." John Steinbeck noted that the American Revolution was different from that of France's or Russia's because the so-called revolutionaries "did not want a new form of government; they wanted the same kind, only run by themselves."

Yet it is only with anti-establishment thinkers that a society progresses. The reason that there is always more disillusionment with Democrats than Republicans is that Democrats raise the expectation of being anti-establishment when, in reality, both parties are committed to maintaining the status quo and the "intent of the founding fathers."

Of course, some might say that another significant difference between the American Revolution and that of the Russians and the French is that we didn't celebrate victory by chopping off the heads of our fellow citizens, or committing countless acts of mass murder against those citizens who were deemed ideologically suspect. We preferred ballots to bullets in the back of the head.

Call me crazy, but I thing that egg-sucking Steinbeck was out to lunch; I prefer our way over that of the guillotine and the gulag.

But the founding fathers, unlike the Americans of today, understood their own shortcomings. Thomas Jefferson warned against a slavish worship of their work, which he referred to as "sanctimonious reverence" for the Constitution. Jefferson believed in the ability of humans to grow wiser, of humankind to make progress, and he believed that the Constitution should be rewritten in every generation.

Every hear of Amending the Constitution? It's happened a few times over the last two hundred and sixteen years. Sounds like anything but slavish adherence, as each Amendment presumes to modify the original.

"Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind," Jefferson wrote in 1816. "As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstance, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

It is surprising that these words are not more often quoted in Washington because they are literally carved in stone — on a wall of the Jefferson Memorial to be exact.

So let us stop worshiping the founding fathers and allow our minds to progress and try to build a nation of great new ideas. That is, after all, the intent of the founding fathers.

So, stop worshipping their ignorant, brutal, slave-holding asses, but try to honor their wise ideas and intent.

Okaaaaaay.

You know, reading that made me want to kill myself. As well as stop bathing, speak french, and get jiggy with Cindy Sheehan.

Which makes me want to kill myself all over again.

Want to know the scariest thing?

The author writes about history.

Hat tip to Wild Bill for sending me the link to the article.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:17 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Sooner or later, we're gonna dance with Kim

So, the North Koreans launch an ICBM that, we now learn, may have been aimed at Hawaii. But military action isn't justified, according to the leading luminaries of the pacifist, moonbat left.

As usual, look to Mark Steyn for some plain-spoken, common-sense talk, from his interview with Hugh Hewitt.

There is no North Korea. It's a one-man state. And I don't agree with these people who are saying well, look at this guy, Kim Jung-Il, what a joke. He's got his big, fantastic, new missile, and he launches it up, and it falls straight out of the sky the minute it got up there. And what a bust it was for him.

The point of the matter is that North Korea isn't the United States or the Soviet Union or France or India. It's not a competent power. It can't feed its own people. Why would you expect it to be able to develop a competent nuclear program.

You know, the fact of the matter is that that doesn't make them less of a threat, it makes them more of a threat, because it's quite conceivable ... I mean, a couple of years ago, they were talking ... five or six years ago, there was a rumor that the North Koreans were planning to nuke Montreal, because it would demonstrate to the Americans that they were serious, but yet it wouldn't be so serious that the Americans would be obliged to nuke them in return.

Now as a Montrealer, I was pretty distressed to hear that. But the point is even if they were aiming to nuke Montreal, it could land anywhere, and kill all you guys in California.

The fact of the matter is that a crazy guy with a nuke is even more dangerous than a sane, competent, technologically advanced guy with a nuke.

Exactly. Would anyone care to engage in a discussion as to whether the threat to the U.S. from North Korea is "imminent"?

The reason why the MAD doctrine worked with the Soviets is that they were rational actors; the Evil Empire, though paranoid about our intentions, had no reason to initiate a world-destroying nuclear exchange. They wanted to conquer us, to be sure, but they preferred to take possession of territory that had not been nuked first, as well as not seeing most of their own nation destroyed.

As Steyn reiterates, Kim Il Sung is most definitely not a rational actor, and as such we cannot presume that he will be deterred from taking actions that we -- and most other nations -- consider simply batshit crazy.

Little war now, or much bigger war later, I think.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 06, 2006

But, y'know, I feel gasoline is bad for children and whales

Donald Sensing had a great post yesterday highlighting the shortcomings of alternative fuel sources.

In today's post, he sums up why a favorite fuel touted by the tree huggers is a non-starter.

[T]o make enough hydrogen to replace all the gasoline used by motor vehicles in the US, you’d need to produce 1.16 trillion kilowatt-hours of electrcity. That happens to be almost exactly “twice the energy actually consumed in 2000 with gasoline.” ... [I]f we we had been driving hydrogen cars all along, we’d be frantically trying to invent the gasoline engine.

But then again, what chance does logic have against feelings?

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 04, 2006

By the Rocket's Red Glare

Is there a more fitting way to celebrate the nation's birthday than to loft its bravest men and women, intrepid pilots, scientists and warriors, into orbit atop a gloriously dangerous roman candle?

I think not.

Good luck and Godspeed to the crew of Discovery, and happy birthday, America.

Posted by Mike Lief at 04:08 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

The NY Times covers the American Revolution

Via Powerline.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 02, 2006

Santa Ynez winery tour

Friends called, inviting us on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Santa Ynez for a "passport tour" of about a dozen wineries. We started here, where I found this still, chilly room where the barrels waited after being filled. It reminded me of a cathedral, its architecture glorifying and sanctifying the grape's ascendance to a higher, more worthy state of existence.

It was also my first time using a new digital camera, the Casio EX-S600. It's very small and takes very good pictures, but to change any of the settings requires pushing buttons to access menus. I prefer the more extensive controls available on the slightly bigger EX-Z750, but it has been replaced by the EX-Z850, which reportedly has a video mode that is inferior to its predecessor.

I'm still mulling over whether I want to keep the S600.

But even with its shortcomings, I'm not tempted to drag out all the Nikon gear and start shooting 35mm again; too big, too heavy, and the images are not -- to my eyes, anyhow -- any better at anything less than poster size. The only reason to use the film camera is if I need the capabilities of its long lenses, for distant subjects. For everything else, the Lilliputian digi's zoom suffices.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:36 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

July 01, 2006

Talledaga Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Finally, a summer movie worth seeing.

"The story of a man who could only count to number one."

"Aaaaahhhhh! I'm on fire! I'm on fire!"

"You're not on fire, Ricky Bobby!"

"Help me Jesus! Help me Jewish god! Help me, Tom Cruise! Tom Cruise, use your witchcraft to get the fire off me!"

Just about fell off the couch when I heard the Tom Cruise line.

Check out the trailer:

Windows Media

Quicktime

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

How soon they forget

Michelle Malkin's latest Vent has a good response to those who claim the actions of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times don't matter.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack